OK, I'll try again... I first reacted to you saying this,
Actually, Woodland started the whole trend many years ago with the low-cost "tinker toy" mills made in China. At the time, they had a unique design not based on anyone else. It was much lighter duty than a Woodmizer or Norwood, for example, with much more assembly required -- you'd never mistake the Woodland for anyone else! I didn't particularly like their early mills, but they were very successful and made a big dent in the market. It was Woodland that got copied by Harbor Freight,
Woodmaxx, and other Chinese clones in time. Woodland was so successful that Norwood eventually entered the low-cost market with their eerily-similar Frontier line made in China, and even Woodmizer has a low-cost model line now. In my opinion they are all decent mills as long as you know what you are getting.
The Mark 3 came out long before woodland had a mill, and it was intended to be a cheap homeowner BSM, and it was, is sold cheap. That being the case, how did woodland "start the whole trend" ?? They didn't, Peter Dale did, when he sold MANY thousands of BSM's directly to buyers' doors, in the early 90's.
Then, the Mark 3 grew to be the LM2000. You claim woodlands mill was copied by Norwood, BUT woodlands bunks, band wheels, guides, log dog, log post and most other "meat and potatoes" parts of woodlands mill, are a direct copy of the LM2000!!!
SO, just because the bracing and some "other" cosmetic parts of the Norwood mill looks the same as woodlands, you can't get past the part that all the "important" parts are copied off the first made/sold LM2000, and the Frontier copied the LM2000 parts!
And why wouldn't Norwood do that? They are proven parts of their own design!
I hope this clears this all up...
I'd be happy to try and answer any other questions you may have too...
SR